Getting into chamber music

Chamber music is written for two to nine players, one to a part, with no conductor. The name comes from where it originally happened: not a concert hall, but the drawing room of somebody wealthy.

Plenty of people leave it until last, on the grounds that it does not sound as good as an orchestra. That order is worth revisiting. Chamber music asks less of a newcomer than a symphony does — it simply gives you something different.

The one difference that decides everything

In an orchestra a dozen players share a line. In chamber music one player has it. Everything else follows from that:

Every note has an author. The answering phrase you hear from the second violin is a decision made by that specific person on that stage. In an orchestra individual judgement is averaged out by the section; here there is no buffer.

No conductor, so you have to watch. Entries are cued by breath and eye contact, and every stretch of tempo is negotiated between four people in real time. Watching them signal to each other is something chamber music alone offers, and it is the reason to be in the room rather than listening to a recording.

Low volume, so detail survives. A diminuendo can go almost to nothing. In an orchestra that bottom layer is simply covered.

Reading the line-up

• String quartet — two violins, viola, cello. The core of the repertoire, and where composers have generally put their most serious writing.
• Piano trio — piano, violin, cello. More extrovert than a quartet; the piano brings a wider range and more forward drive.
• Piano quintet / string quintet — a quartet plus one. The added instrument shifts the whole centre of gravity, and it is worth noticing where it takes over.
• Sonatas (violin and piano, cello and piano) — strictly duos. Note that the piano is not accompaniment. The two instruments are equals, and the title pages usually read 'for piano and violin', in that order.

What to hear first

The safest way in is a Romantic piano trio or quintet. Mendelssohn's D minor Trio, Schubert's Trout Quintet, Dvořák's Dumky Trio — the melodies are on the surface and the emotional weather is unambiguous.

For string quartets, start in the middle of the repertoire. Haydn's quartets are light and easy to follow; Debussy and Ravel each wrote exactly one, both full of colour and easy to like.

Do not make late Beethoven your first quartet. They are the summit of the form and also the hardest door in it; a first encounter usually just feels long. Come back after a dozen chamber concerts and they will open.

Where to sit, and what to do

Chamber halls are small, and the difference between seats matters much less than in a large hall. Sit reasonably far forward if you can, close enough to see bowing and fingers. Watching is part of understanding here.

While you listen, try one exercise: follow a single voice through a whole movement. The viola, say, and nothing else. You will discover immediately that the inner parts have been working the entire time and are normally covered by the melody above them. Do this once and it changes how you hear every piece of polyphony afterwards.

In Shanghai

The Shanghai Concert Hall, the recital hall at the Shanghai Symphony Hall and the Oriental Recital Hall are the main chamber venues, all a few hundred seats and all acoustically close. Tickets are usually a clear tier below orchestral concerts.

See the chamber music coming up →